Czech Republic orders ISPs to block Polymarket nationwide over gambling concerns
The Czech Republic has ordered internet service providers nationwide to block access to Polymarket. The action was issued on a fixed 15-day timeline. Czech authorities cite concerns that Polymarket's event contracts constitute unlicensed gambling. The order makes the platform officially illegal in the country. Polymarket acquired CFTC-licensed exchange QCEX in 2025 and operates in the United States under a CFTC order of designation.
Polymarket must now defend its product classification on a new European front. The Czech order arrives on a fixed 15-day timeline. That leaves no room to restructure contracts or seek local licensing before the block takes full effect. Czech users face a complete cutoff, not a transaction-layer geofence. Each new blacklist shrinks the addressable market where Polymarket can serve retail users without fighting locally.
Rival platforms face identical risk: national regulators treat event contracts as binary options outside financial exemptions. The Czech and French blocks share the same mechanism and legal reasoning. That suggests regulators are now trading notes on enforcement tactics. Polymarket's choice is narrowing toward expensive jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction litigation or abandoning EU retail users entirely.
Joins recent parallel action by France as national regulators across Europe independently apply gambling law to CFTC-registered prediction market platforms, shrinking Polymarket's addressable retail market outside licensing frameworks.